Tag: Eurozone Crisis

German media pounced this week on footage of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis raising a middle finger for foreign debt managers during a presentation on his country’s debt crisis. The man who filmed the talk says the clip was taken out of context to divert public attention from the substance of the crisis.

A New Yorker profile of German Chancellor Angela Merkel depicts a shrewd politician cut to the shape of leadership in our age: bland, personally reserved and entirely uninterested in challenging the prevailing neoliberal order.

For now, the government of Cyprus has overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout. But if technocrat bankers can push through their confiscation scheme, precedent will be established for doing it elsewhere when bank bailouts become prohibitive for governments.

Democrats have a lot to worry about if this week’s recall vote in Wisconsin was a bellwether for November’s election. But there’s another problem that might be even more worrisome for Barack Obama: the economic crisis in Europe and its potential spread across the globe. If the upcoming election is all about America’s economic fortunes, what’s a president to do?

European leaders are drawing up a solution to the EU’s fiscal crisis that would hand sovereignty over the budgets and fiscal policies of eurozone states to Germany in return for the pooling of national debt and banking liabilities. Brussels, France, Spain and Germany all support a federalized eurozone.